


Untitled (or, The Many Lives Of James Barnes)

by alexiel_neesan



Category: Marvel
Genre: F/M, Identity Issues, Memories, mixed universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 17:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexiel_neesan/pseuds/alexiel_neesan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He remember things differently sometimes. </em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled (or, The Many Lives Of James Barnes)

He remembers things differently sometimes –he didn’t meet Steve during the war, but instead he was the one who had protected, done his best to protect, this scrawny guy who never knew when to quit, just a guy from Brooklyn who tried to fake his way into the army to go fight with him, with Bucky–

And sometimes he wishes it had been that way, fuck knows Steve would have needed someone to cover his skinny ass, like this one time behind the theater, the day Bucky got his orders, when the kid went after that ox of a bully–

But that’s not his life. Not _his_ , James “Bucky” Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier, also known as Captain America, also known as dead, twice now and intending to stay that way a little longer, who grew up on a military base and was killing people by sixteen, he doesn’t talk about the ones before because they don’t exist, who died blew up over the Atlantic, or Arctic or wherever it really was, a little too busy dying– and he can remember a train, and the bright deadly discharges of the Hydra’s weapons, and the weight of the shield in his hand and Steve’s hand and _I’m sorry big guy_ –

He wakes up in a– training took care of the waking up. He rarely gasps, or dreams aloud, or cries in his sleep. When the nightmares hit, real or imagined and he puts this other life he never lived in that second category, he just opens his eyes. The feeling of the fall and the snow and the icy water and Steve’s eyes vanishes soon enough.

Usually.

They’re– somewhere, not New York, not Siberia, not Europe, but somewhere that could pretend to be all three, if he closes his eyes –too soon, all he can see is darkness and the starkness of the snow, of the sky, as he fell from the train– and turned the TV on. He doesn’t do either. He doesn’t want to wake Natasha up. He probably did anyway, and not for the first time he wonders if he should tell her, this other life he dreams about, this other life he remembers.

His serial number wasn’t the same, when it was all his mind could grasp, strapped on the table. He–

She’d understand. She’d get it better than anyone else, because she was Natasha. He trusted her, trusts her. That doesn’t make the dreams easier to talk about. That doesn’t made talking easier– too many ghosts, too many skeletons, too many memories. They make it work, but sometimes there are too many people in a room, when they are alone together.

He doesn’t look like himself, in the reflection of the window —if he squints, if he forgets for an instant, he could be the other him, he could be himself, he could be Winter Soldier again. He wonders if that’s the face Steve saw when he fell— from the train, from the explosion, from the missile.

He doesn’t go back to sleep.

/end.  



End file.
